Through the Pack at Glenfield

The Nine of Hearts

Last updated on 24^th June 2006

At first sight it looks as if East should lose seven tricks in spades; but I came into the game to provide the vital seventh trick.
Board 25 Dealer N EW Game	North ª 7 © K754 ¨ AT865 § KT3		Both North and East have borderline opening bids and, when the hand was played at Glenfield Bridge Club on 21^st June 2006, just one table chose to pass the hand out. The rest of the field divided equally between those East/West’s who declared spades and the North/South’s who played in diamonds. The cards lay kindly for North/South and they should make nine tricks; four diamonds, two hearts, two clubs and the king of spades. The North/South winners, Terry Downs and Laurence Popple, actually made ten tricks. Possibly by leading the three of hearts from dummy. It is correct for West to play me to that trick, but it is tempting to play the ace. Now declarer can cross back to dummy and finesse the jack of hearts to make three heart tricks. The East/West winners, Bill Youngs and Ian Thomson, were defending three diamonds and they made better use of me to hold this contract to seven tricks for a top. I also came into the play for those declarers in two spades. At first sight, it looks as if this contract is losing the king of spades and two tricks in each of the other suits; too many at the vulnerability. However, it costs nothing to draw trumps and finesse me. If South has the king, the queen can be finessed later. However, if South has the jack and ten and North the king this is the only play to yield two heart tricks. At least one lazy South solved all declarer’s problems by playing the ten of hearts in front of dummy. The results, travellers and personal scorecards are online.
West ª J2 © AQ9 ¨ K97 § J8542		East ª AQT964 © 862 ¨ J2 § Q7
	South ª K853 © JT3 ¨ Q43 § A96

At first sight, slam in spades for East/West depends on diamonds breaking 3-3. But if I am played at the right time there are additional chances.
Board 9 Dealer S EW Vul	North ª J8 © J85 ¨ JT9 § QJT42		I should say at the outset that nobody actually bid six spades in the match between Glenfield A and Blaby A on 19^th November 2003; three pairs were in four spades and the fourth was in three no trumps. Nevertheless the consideration of the play is just as relevant. At one table West was declarer and North found the natural looking lead of the queen of clubs. Declarer won, drew trumps, played three rounds of diamonds and, when they broke, was able to discard a heart on the four of diamonds to make four diamond tricks, two club tricks, the ace of hearts, three trump tricks, a heart ruff and a club ruff. This line requires diamonds 3-3 and has a 36% chance of success. You could improve on that by drawing just two rounds of trumps before playing diamonds. Then you can make twelve tricks whenever diamonds are four-two provided the hand with the doubleton diamond had just two trumps. A sequence of play that superficially works is to cash the king and queen of spades, cash the clubs, king of diamonds, play a diamond to the queen, club ruff, diamond to the ace. Now, if diamonds are three-three the last trump can be drawn and the four of diamonds cashed. However, if there is a discard on the third round of diamonds we ruff the four of diamonds. Now we must play ace and another heart and we are vulnerable to a club ruff if North started with three spades, three clubs and more than two diamonds. Better is to play hearts at trick two. Playing ace and another has the snag that, if the defence leads a third round, West is forced to ruff and has insufficient entries to ruff a club and a diamond and draw trumps. Best then is to play a heart towards me at trick two. Any return can be won in dummy and we play as before but, after ruffing the four of diamonds, we can ruff a heart to get back to hand and draw the last trump.
West ª A973 © T9 ¨ AQ43 § 875		East ª KQ64 © A742 ¨ K62 § AK
	South ª T52 © KQ63 ¨ 875 § 963

The next card is the eight of hearts

The previous card was the ten of hearts

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6.1 Bidding	Strategy	Acol	Psychic Bidding	Precision
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6.1.2 Opening Bids	One Club	One Diamond	One Heart	One Spade	One No Trump	Pre-empts
	Two Clubs	Two Diamonds	Two Hearts	Two Spades	Two No Trumps
6.1.3 Responding to an Opening Bid	Simple change of suit	Opener’s Rebid	Responder’s Rebid	Preference	Opener’s Second Rebid	Jump in a new suit	Responding in no trumps
	Limit Raise	Inverted Minors
6.1.3.1 Responding to 1NT	Transfers
6.1.3.2 Responding to 2NT	Transfers	Baron
6.1.4 Conventions	Stayman	Fourth Suit Forcing	Reverse	Crowhurst
6.1.4.1 Conventional Opening Bids	Lucas Twos	Multi Two Diamonds	Weak Twos
6.1.4.2 Competitive Conventions	Jump Overcall	Lebensohl	Unassuming Cue Bid	Unusual No Trump	Continuing after opponent’s take out double	Take out Double	Cue Bid
	Fishbein	Defence to 1NT	Halmic	1NT Overcall	Redouble	Simple Overcall
6.1.4.3 Slam Conventions	Blackwood	Gerber	Roman Key Card Blackwood	Splinter	Jump to 5 of a suit	Grand Slam Force	Acol Four No Trump Opening
	Asking Bids	DOPI and ROPI
6.1.5 Doubles	Optional	Penalty	Lead Directional
6.1.6 The Protective Position
6.2 Declarer Play
6.2.1 General Technique	End Play	Squeeze	Finesse	Lose tricks early	Pin	Avoidance	Restricted Choice
6.2.2 Trump Management	Ruffing	Ruffing Losers before drawing trumps	Trump Coup	Ruffing Finesse	Loser on Loser	Coping with bad splits	Cross Ruff
	Dummy Reversal
6.3 Defence	Second Player	Signals	Third Player	Play the cards you are known to have
6.3.1 Defensive Tactics	Forcing Defence	Passive Defence	Merrimac Coup
6.3.2 Opening Leads	Fourth Highest	Third and Fifth	MUD	Top of Nothing
6.3.3 Plays in Third Hand	Finesse Against Dummy	Finesse Against Partner
6.3.4 Entry Management	Unblocking
6.4 Probability
6.5 Glossary of Terms
7 Through the Pack